Tips and Tricks with KDE

You can use KDE's Disk Navigator to quickly access directories through either its file manager (KFM) or an X terminal window. Open the "K" menu and place your mouse on the "Disk Navigator" entry. This will automatically open the main "Disk Navigator" menu, which you can then use to find the directory of interest. Once you locate the directory, put your mouse on the directory name to open its submenu and display the "Open Folder" item. If you click on the "Open Folder" entry with the left mouse button, a new copy of KFM will run and open to that directory. Holding the Shift key down while you click will instead make an X terminal open at the selected directory.

You can use KDE’s Disk Navigator to quickly access directories through either its file manager (KFM) or an X terminal window. Open the “K” menu and place your mouse on the “Disk Navigator” entry. This will automatically open the main “Disk Navigator” menu, which you can then use to find the directory of interest. Once you locate the directory, put your mouse on the directory name to open its submenu and display the “Open Folder” item. If you click on the “Open Folder” entry with the left mouse button, a new copy of KFM will run and open to that directory. Holding the Shift key down while you click will instead make an X terminal open at the selected directory.

Take Control: You can tailor the KDE graphical login screen, including the graphic displayed for each user, from the KDE Control Center.

If you use KDE’s graphical login manager but aren’t happy with its appearance, there’s a lot you can change. Click on the “K” menu, select the “KDE Control Center,” click on the “Applications” node on the left to expand it, and then select “Login Manager.” You can use the tabs in the “Login Manager” to change the background, font, and logo on the login screen. You can even change the default silhouette image it uses for each user’s icon. Select the “Users” tab and then click on that user’s image (which is just a big button) on the right-hand side of the “Login Manager” and select a new image via the dialog box that appears.

There are two handy ways to make a frequently used application more accessible. You can place a link to the program in your desktop or you can add it directly to the KDE Panel. To create a desktop link, open the KDE File Manager, locate the program, then drag it with your left mouse button to an open spot on the desktop. When you release the button a small menu will pop up near your mouse pointer, with “Copy,” “Move,” and “Link” options — “Link” is the one you want. To add a program to your KPanel instead, first click on the “K” menu, select “Panel,” and then “Add Application,” and finally the application itself. The program you selected will be added to the panel. To delete the application’s entry in either place, first click on it with your right mouse button and then select either the “Delete” (desktop) or “Remove” (K panel) option from the pop-up menu.

KDE typically defaults to four virtual desktops. You can change this to two, six, or eight screens; change the width of the desktop buttons on the KDE Panel; and edit the name displayed on each button. Right-click on the KDE panel at the bottom of your screen, and select “Configure” from the pop-up menu, which will display the “KPanel Configuration” dialog. Click on the “Desktops” tab, and then you will be able to change the settings as you wish.

Up to The Task: KTop (Task Manager) gives easy access to your system state and running tasks.

KDE includes a useful system-monitoring utility, KTop, also known as the KDE Task Manager. To run it, open the “K” menu (click on the “K” button on the KDE panel), then the “System” menu, and select the “Task Manager” entry. You can look at the active processes on your system sorted by name or the ID of the process itself or the user who launched the process, and even kill processes. KTop can also display constantly updated graphics for the system load, memory usage, and CPU usage, including one chart for each CPU on a dual-processor system.

If your hard drive is a little tight on space, you can free up about a megabyte of room by deleting unused KDE wallpaper files. These files are typically stored in /opt/kde/share/ wallpapers or /usr/share/ wallpapers, depending on where KDE is installed on your system. (Note that KDE can be found in different locations on different Linux distributions.)